Brady Yauch is an economist at the Consumer Policy Institute (CPI), which identifies itself as “an independent think-tank dedicated to achieving lower costs and greater efficiencies for Canadian consumers, particularly in sectors run by government monopolies or those receiving large subsidies.” Mr. Yauch published How Megaprojects bankrupt Power Utilities and Leave Regulators in the Dark, ...

Muskrat Falls was always a done deal, and a bad one, Pam Frampton, Saint John’s Telegram: One week the project was all about clean energy, the next it was job creation, then it was all about being an affordable energy source, then it was a means of foiling Quebec, then it was a lure for ...

An item previously published at In-Sights but worth reviewing as the BCUC finally gets to examine BC Hydro’s latest mega-project. Large Dams Cost Twice Original Budget, Researchers Say, Bloomberg Business, March 11, 2014: Large dams run 96 percent over budget on average, according to a University of Oxford study based on projects in 65 countries ...

Assorted content to end your week. – John Paul Tasker reports on the federal government’s plans to close some loopholes which allow the use of small corporations in order to avoid income taxes. And Andrew Jackson writes that we should support that first step toward a fairer tax system. But the Star points out that ...

Another contribution from Richard McCandless, a former senior civil servant in British Columbia and a knowledgeable analyst who comments regularly on public affairs at BC Policy Perspectives. (Republished here with permission.) On Thursday the Liberal party promised to spend hundreds of millions on new and expanded programs, signaling the abandonment of what many had believed ...

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Richard Seymour follows up on Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral success by highlighting the importance of a grassroots progressive movement which stays active and vibrant between election cycles: Labour needs only a small swing to win a majority if there were to be another election, and current polling suggests they ...

Miscellaneous material for your mid-week reading. – Dennis Howlett comments on the distortions in Canada’s tax system which redistribute money upward to those who need it least: It’s time for Mr. Morneau to deliver a comprehensive and comprehensible tax strategy that will work in 2017 and beyond because, currently, tax breaks for the richest 10 ...

Assorted content to end your week. – Andrew Jackson discusses the problems with increased corporate concentration of wealth and power – including the need for a response that goes beyond competition policies. In the 1960s, institutional economists like John Kenneth Galbraith described a world of oligopoly in which a few firms, such as the big ...

What’s really wrong is that BC Hydro has been spending billions on new capacity but producing less power. Demand has not grown since 2005 but purchases from IPPs rose 108% from 6,444 GWh to 13,377 between FY 2005 and FY 2015. They’re up again in 2016 by about 11%. When there’s too much power and ...

What’s really wrong is that BC Hydro has been spending billions on new capacity but producing less power. Demand has not grown since 2005 but purchases from IPPs, between FY 2005 and FY 2015, rose 108% from 6,444 GWh to 13,377. The purchasing is up again in 2016, by about 11%. The cost of IPP ...

What’s really wrong is that BC Hydro has been spending billions on new capacity but producing less power. Demand has not grown since 2005 but purchases from IPPs, between FY 2005 and FY 2015, rose 108% from 6,444 GWh to 13,377. The purchasing is up again in 2016, by about 11%. The cost of IPP ...

“Water is the driving force of all nature” — Leonardo da VinciWhy Site C must be stopped, Wendy Holm [Consulting Agrologist], Special to the Vancouver Sun, July 28, 2014 …in the face of overwhelming evidence, the B.C. government and its private sector partners seem quite content to throw tomorrow under the bus and press ahead ...

“Water is the driving force of all nature” — Leonardo da VinciWhy Site C must be stopped, Wendy Holm [Consulting Agrologist], Special to the Vancouver Sun, July 28, 2014 …in the face of overwhelming evidence, the B.C. government and its private sector partners seem quite content to throw tomorrow under the bus and press ahead ...

“Water is the driving force of all nature” — Leonardo da VinciWhy Site C must be stopped, Wendy Holm [Consulting Agrologist], Special to the Vancouver Sun, July 28, 2014 …in the face of overwhelming evidence, the B.C. government and its private sector partners seem quite content to throw tomorrow under the bus and press ahead ...

The eyes of British Columbians should be on BC Hydro’s Site C project. It is a hydro facility not needed in a province that has had a decade of flat domestic demand for electricity, despite there being no significant effort to improve efficiency and conserve power. Site C has an $8.8 billion budget but is ...

Site C Is a Climate-Change Disaster, Says Suzuki, Mychaylo Prystupa, The Tyee, February 23, 2016: Flooding valuable farmland to build the Site C dam undermines Canada’s commitment to meet international climate-change targets, environmentalist David Suzuki said outside a B.C. courtroom this week. The farmland is needed to reduce B.C.’s dependence on imported foods, Suzuki said, ...

I’m often critical of corporate media but there is still some sharp work being done, even by people outside the major urban centres of BC. Here’s an example: References to the Temporary Foreign Worker program were scrubbed from a #SiteC job post. https://t.co/aEuRWVu42g pic.twitter.com/mjB4omM2uE — Jonny Wakefield (@jonnywakefield) February 12, 2016

Even slightly aware BC citizens know that Premier Clark and her accomplices are incompetent. Liberal managers include not a single person capable of completing a basic course in strategic decision making. The result is a litany of failed designs, missed opportunities, blown budgets and unmet goals. Excepting deadly choices at the Children and Family Development ...

Once again the BC NDP seem poised for certain victory against the BC Liberals. However that task and challenge has not been accomplished since 1996 when an upstart and radically relevant Glen Clark upset the Read more…

Is B.C.’s Site C dam a gateway to dirty energy?, Calyn Shaw, CBC News Network, December 22, 2014 The provincial government has made it clear that Site C is about meeting future electricity demands. But the province is currently energy self-sufficient; we are a significant net exporter of power. According to BC Hydro’s own growth ...

Globe and Mail, October 4, 1979: British Columbia Hydro has announced plans to apply for approval for a hydro-electric power project at Site C on the Peace River… Globe and Mail, February 13, 1981: British Columbia Hydro has applied for a water licence to build the $1.95- billion Site C power project on the Peace ...